Contact, the nuchal ligament and other “a-has”

Last Thursday I managed to snag a lesson with Jana, and she re-established the idea of contact in my head. I had this down pat, I swear, but it went out the window during our bad December.

We kept the rhythm a little slow, kept me really tall with leg stretched waaaaay down, and kept the contact. Jana was on me CONSTANTLY about my contact. The result? Sid got really super connected and stayed that way. I mean REALLY. This was one of those lessons where we spent most of our time doing transitions on a 20m circle, but I didn’t mind. He gave me the best feeling ever.

I FINALLY, after a bad weekend as far as my schedule goes, got to ride again tonight. We picked up where we left off. I started with some free walk (after lunging first, it was cooold) and then picked Sid up. I did some halts, asked him to really stretch down, and flexed him side to side to flip his nuchal ligament like Jana showed me. This makes a HUGE difference in his lateral suppleness. We did all kinds of bending lines, flexing, counter flexing, stopping and flipping the ligament.

We picked up trot and the same thing, true flexion, counter flexion, back. SOLID contact. He was a bit spooky but I rode him into the contact and he forgot about it. We got back on the 20m circle and did lots of canter-trot-canter transitions. Then, the litmus test now that he really, really felt connected – sitting trot. I tried some shorter stretches and it. was. good. YEAH!

We stretched – still flexing both directions, and leg yielding away from my inside leg. I quit with that – only about a 30 minute ride, if that. I think we had a breakthrough…

goals.

Well, we all have ‘em right?

Short term? Improving my seat at the trot, improving the quality of Sid’s trot. It’s coming. Also keep Sid relaxed in sitting trot, he’s still unsure of himself and after a while, he’ll lose it and tense up. We’re interspersing lots of rising among the sitting while he’s getting stronger, and I’ll slowly reduce the amount of time spent rising as time passes.

I plan to start the show season at First level. I plan to do either the KCDS May show or the Cornhusker Classic in Lincoln, NE a couple weeks later. It depends on how things are coming. I also hope to go to the show in Columbia, MO in July. If we get some second level in later in the year, great. Whatever he is ready for.

I should have my amateur status back mid to late summer. My ultimate goal, this season completely aside, is to qualify and compete at USDF Regionals in 2010 at 3rd level, amateur. I’ve made my goals known and have been told they are achievable. We’ll see! Right now the plan is to start the changes toward the end of this show season. He has shown great aptitude for them, and we don’t want to make our showing this year too difficult. I think he will get them quickly, and we’ll have all autumn and winter to work at it.

clawing our way back up

My previous post detailed the abysmal 2-3 weeks Sid and I endured in December, apparently due to a wound on the side of his jowl that was bothering him.  He’s pretty much back to his normal self under saddle, and we’re moving forward.

I do want to mention something GOOD that happened before all went to hell – Sid was giving me good canter one night and on a whim, I asked for a change from his bad side to his good. He obliged. I praised him profusely and tried the other side. He obliged. It appears changes are going to be pretty easy for him – that being said, they’re back on the back burner until his counter canter and canter/walk, walk/canter transitions get stronger.

I hadn’t ridden with Jana since early December – she couldn’t make it midmonth due to bad roads, then left the following week for Germany for the holidays. When she was back a couple of weeks ago, I couldn’t ride with her due to my work schedule. I used to take a 5:15 slot with her; however, lately 4:30 has been the last open ride and I just can’t get away from work early enough most days.

Desperate for some guidance, I asked Mary Forck if she’d help me out. She has her training horses at the barn and I’d been impressed with her riding. I’ve had a couple of lessons with her and she has zeroed in on our weak areas, and much to my relief her suggestions and comments during our ride mirrored Jana’s almost to a “t”.

The past two weeks we have worked on “quickening” up his hind end, and making him a bit more reactionary to my leg and seat aids. When he was, he seemed to release and move into the contact in a very relaxed fashion. His transitions improved. The contact improved.

We worked on walk-canter-walk transitions. Spiraling in, collecting, collecting, then back out and forward on the 20m circle, then back in and half halt, half halt, walk. Though they aren’t there yet, by any means, he’s showing good improvement.

We’ve worked on leg yielding, even on circles and in corners, away from the inside leg to engage and activate that inside hind. Here I have to be careful to keep a steady contact on the outside, close to his neck, and not allow him to escape over his outside shoulder…ruining the exercise. Luckily I have a good grasp of how this should feel and how it should not.

We worked on transitions within the canter. Very forward with lots of jump, back as much as he comfortably can, forward again. Then if he started losing his carriage and leaning on me/collapsing, we’d go into trot, leg yield away on a circle/curve and back into canter. This was a GREAT exercise and when we picked up trot at the end and she sent us forward into a lengthening, he gave me the most awesome feeling ever. He REALLY lengthened!

We’ve also worked on counter canter, which is coming nicely.

Hopefully my days of working with Jana are not over – hopefully we can find some sort of connection SOMEWHERE on our schedules, but at least Mary is helping tons right now.

midwinter update

Well, I’ve not posted in two months but I can’t say anyone reading this has missed much. We had a HUGE setback in December for about 2-3 weeks. What I thought was him being cooped up due to bad weather, and getting stiff, has turned out to be something entirely different.

Sid got very stiff longitudinally. In fact, he would often start out *okay* (not great) but get worse as the ride went on. There were a couple of rides where he felt like riding a giraffe – a barely broke giraffe. I was super discouraged. My instructor was in Germany at the time but it was for the better – he was so bad, I don’t think a lesson would have caused much headway.

He started getting better, and we moved on. But then one day, I had a GREAT ride to start that again went downhill as we went on – and then he threw his head and started wringing his tail. Ok. I got off, figuring he hurt somewhere. After all, I was in the process of contacting a chiropractor to come out and give him a look-over. I assumed all that stall time got him out of whack.

I unbuckled his caveson. He had had a big scab on the lower part of his upper jowl. I had blown that off totally, dropping his caveson one hole lower to keep it from bothering him. But this scab had grown HUGE. It stuck way out and was half peeled off and oozing. My poor boy!

On a whim I removed the caveson and got on him with just a headstall, bit and reins. We picked up a forward trot around the arena and my boy got soft, round and flexible like he hadn’t been in weeks.

From then on it’s been a steady climb back. He’s again ‘filling the reins’ with a nice steady soft contact and although with the cold weather he’s still a spook-monkey, he is giving me some great work.

Following will be a couple of posts about our current training ‘projects’. All of which are occuring, as I type, without a caveson. Once his scab is gone, he’s got a nice, padded FRENCH caveson with a sheepskin channel on the underside – for now at least – waiting for him. I don’t know if the caveson caused the sore (pinching) or if he got it roughhousing with the boys outside, but I’m not taking any chances.